A Canadian college student has had her jaw wired shut, forcing her to shift to an all-liquid diet for six weeks after she attempted to eat the popular jawbreaker candy, only to unexpectedly realise why they are called so. The student, identified as Javeria Wasim, was shopping alongside her friend when they picked up the candy, which in certain cases, can be as big as a snooker cue ball.
“We got a giant one, the biggest size they had,” Ms Wasim was quoted as saying by People. The two friends even quizzed the shop owner about the candy: “‘Can we bite into this? The candy is literally called a jawbreaker.’ “
As soon as Ms Wasim bit into the gumball, her jaw started to hurt. A friend pointed out that her front tooth was chipped while another was wiggly. Realising the damage was just more than a teeth, the duo called an ambulance to take Ms Wasim to the hospital where an X-ray and CT scan revealed that she had suffered two fractures in the jaw.
“I bit into it and only made a hole and my jaw started to hurt. My friend looked over and said my tooth was chipped. It hurt bad, I was crying a lot when the ambulance came and everything was blurry,” said Ms Wasim.
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Surgery to fix the jaw
The 19-year-old could not even open her mouth and was promptly dispatched into surgery the next day by the doctors. The procedure took an hour during which her jaw was put back into place and a bar was inserted on her top and bottom gums, wiring it shut for the next six weeks.
Ms Wasim admits the freak accident has traumatised her for life and that she may never eat another candy in her life.
“I used to have them as a little kid, I’ve seen videos of people biting into the small ones but I’d never seen anyone bite into the big ones. You realize how important your mouth is, you use it for literally everything in your life. It has affected my life so much.”
Wasim said she has struggled with the liquid diet and the side effects of the surgery. She is now urging others to only lick the candy, even if it takes them weeks to get to the centre.
